| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: vinced that people in the country live just like
wild beasts, having no idea of what life is, and
that only life in town is real. He read books
written by clever writers, and went to the perform-
ances in the Peoples' Palace. In the country,
people would not see such wonders even in dreams.
In the country old men say: "Obey the law, and
live with your wife; work; don't eat too much;
don't care for finery," while here, in town, all the
clever and learned people--those, of course,
who know what in reality the law is--only pur-
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: capable of feeling for a man, while the priest's conjectures were the
utter destruction of the illusions she had hitherto cherished, she
defended her husband; at the same time, she could not eradicate the
suspicion that had been so ingeniously sown in her soul.
These alarms wrought such havoc in her feeble brain that they made her
ill; she was worn by low fever. These incidents took place during Lent
1822; she would not pretermit her austerities, and fell into a decline
that put her life in danger. Granville's indifference was added
torture; his care and attention were such as a nephew feels himself
bound to give to some old uncle.
Though the Countess had given up her persistent nagging and
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: and so spotless, should as it were by a sudden insanity have proved
so untrue to herself. Their noblest and purest sympathies have been
enlisted--and who can blame them?--in loyalty to a Queen, chivalry
to a woman, pity for the unfortunate and--as they conceived--the
innocent; but whether they have been right or wrong in their view of
facts, the Scotch partisans of Mary have always--as far as I know--
been right in their view of morals; they have never deigned to admit
Mary's guilt, and then to palliate it by those sentimental, or
rather sensual, theories of human nature, too common in a certain
school of French literature, too common, alas! in a certain school
of modern English novels. They have not said, "She did it; but
|
